Cottage Reno

This is officially the last weekend of the summer, and we’re currently sitting on our deck after a large pancake breakfast sipping on some coffee. I’ve been asked a bunch of times how the cottage renovation has been, and when we were going to be posting some more photos.

We’ve been holding off sharing it because we let Remodelista have the exclusive to the story. Since there will inevitably be some readers who don’t follow Remodelista, or simply missed the article we wanted to do our own post about it as a nice farewell to the summer.

Of course, I have the feeling we are in store for some beautiful weather in September, we can already feel the cool breeze coming off of Georgian Bay.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but the whole inspiration for this cottage was the “Finnish summer home”. There is a large Finnish and Estonian community in Ontario, in fact we have the highest amount of Finns outside of Finland. We liked the idea of bringing back the cottage to it’s original state with natural pine floors, and simple practical furniture. We wanted the pieces we chose to furnish the cottage with to feel as if they had always been there.

Now taking a second to study this photo, you can begin to appreciate what adding a layer of plaster did for the white fireplace. When it was simply painted stone it just didn’t look right. We also added an iron hook and a Japanese palm broom and dustpan to break up all of the white.

The Swedish sconces look just like tree branches.

A pair of Aalto shelves with some Japanese iron sculptures, an old laminated wood architecture model, a milk bottle terrarium, a birch bark box to hold matches, and a brass Wirkkala-esque candle holder.

For the dining room, we settled on a table, bench, and chair set by Ilmari Tapiovaara.

We even picked up a stool for additional seating, or to be used next to the fireplace to stoke the fire.

I think it pairs really well next to the vintage Aalto bar cabinet.

Stacked rocks.

The stool in the foreground is an early 1930s/40s Aalto stool we found at Machine Age Modern in Leslieville. The sofa is a blue Hiroshima sofa by Naoto Fukasawa with beech wood legs.

The sofa choice was inspired by Aalto’s blue sofa we saw in his home in Helsinki.

Aalto also used these Zebra pillows on that blue sofa in his home, so we order a couple for ourselves directly from Artek.

All of the bedding is colourful striped sheets and pillowcases from Marimekko. In all of the bedrooms we have small Aalto luggage benches.

We just got home from a very productive couple of days at the cottage. The weather was beautiful, the birds were singing, and we’re all grinning from all of the good work we did. The first thing you’ll notice is the new additions which I will get to in a minute. The big accomplishment this week was that my brother and I painted the entire cottage in one day. You can’t tell from the photographs but the before and after is staggering. We used Benjamin Moore’s cloud white, our staple white paint, and it enhanced all of the best qualities of the cottage. One thing we did learn about paint is that getting “Cloud White” at Home Depot is not the same as from Benjamin Moore. Definitely get Benjamin Moore. It’s a little thing but makes a huge impact.

Alright moving towards furniture…

One of the most exciting purchases is this 1940s cocktail cabinet by our favorite architect Alvar Aalto. We found this cabinet online at a wonderful vintage shop called Reside Inc. The price was incredibly fair and the communication, packaging, and overall experience was top notch.

The cabinet is made from mahogany with Aalto’s signature bent birch legs. Everything is original including the shelves, a heart shaped key and the flawless patina.

***This cabinet is not for sale*** (Sorry, whenever we post anything like this we get a dozen inquiries)

I’m such a sucker for these old out of production Aalto pieces, they are so hard to find here in North America.

We found three of these framed Swedish lithographs from the inaugural Junction Flea a few weeks ago. We didn’t really get a chance to talk about it much but we will do a post about the many other items we scored soon! Next Junction Flea is July 8 and we highly recommend you come on out to the neighborhood for the day. It’s so worth it!

These are going to look great next to our future dining table.

On the other side of the living room we have a big Totone rug by Eero Koivisto for Asplund. It is actually a hangover from our first order from Asplund and we used it briefly on the floor before rolling it up and putting it in the basement so it wouldn’t be destroyed by snowy salty winter boots.

Hopefully it looks good with our sofa.

I fixed all of the cracks in the fireplace and gave everything another coat of paint. It’s a huge improvement.

In order to break up the fireplace a bit, I bought this cast iron rod to install underneath the wood ledge. I’ll put this palm sweeper and one of our persimmon dustpans by Oji Masanori on it to be used for sweeping ash.

The other piece to mimic the plastered fireplace is the RAW candleholder by Jens Fager. We have the traditional ceramic version of this at our main cottage so I think it’s a nice element to connect the two.

I’ve been saving this one, but thought I’d give you a sneak peak. We picked up a pair of these vintage Swedish sconce’s by Knut Hallgren. When the candle bulbs are in, it looks like a branch with three leaves. Can’t wait until they’re installed.

A hand broom for good measure.

A lazy but smart solution Juli came up with for the edges of the floor. The floor sander couldn’t go straight against the wall, so we were left with a dark strip of dirty flooring. I didn’t want to spend a day on my hands and knees with a hand sander so we simply painted the floor closest to the wall white. Since the bedrooms are already painted white it makes for an interesting transition.

It almost looks intentional.

We’re hoping to start filling the cottage with furniture soon, and then we’ll be able to finally put our feet up and relax. Never fear though, there will be plenty to tackle next summer…

Last week I went up north on my day off to paint the guest rooms and sun room floors white, and to lye and soap treat the rest of the unfinished pine floors. Having experimented with diluted milk paint on the floors in the store, I can confidently say this is the most natural looking white finish I have seen. It looks closer to an unfinished wood than something intentional.

You can see in this photo where the lye floor meets the white painted floor. The strip is from tape and shows the colour of the unfinished pine.

A shot of the floor after the first coat of soap flakes. The soap creates a barrier to stop dirt and oil from penetrating the wood, to clean everything up again you simply have to mop the floor using the soap solution and the dirt and dust is removed and a new membrane of soap is added.

On top of that, it is the most matte finish you could ever ask for, and it also allows dents in floors to rise again.

I also got around to painting the bedroom floors a nice glossy white.

Also the sun room, which has never looked better. We have a really great idea for this room that I think you’re going to really enjoy!

Finally with the help of our plumber we installed the ceramic sink and white faucet which looks amazing against the birch counter.

I also managed to cut a new piece of wood to sit between the counter and the window. It’s starting to come together!

Another day at the cottage and this time we removed the old blue MDF counter and replaced it with some nice birch counter tops. These are so easy to make because you don’t have to worry about laminating a bunch of solid wood pieces together, and since they aren’t very thick we can use a little electric hand saw to cut out the opening for the sink.

The old white cabinets with the black and white drawer pulls look great next to the pine floors and wood counters. The one thing we didn’t anticipate was the new thickness of the counter, and our nice wood edging was an inch too short. You can see on the the pieces underneath the window just shy of the trim and tiles. FYI Those windmill motif tiles will either be painted or replaced.

You might notice that I made a little plywood cabinet to sit flush with the window and cover up the electrical box. It’s still pretty noticeable, so I’m not sure if I should bleach the wood, or just paint over it.

The kitchen still needs a good paint job, but you can imagine what it will look like when it’s all finished.

The sink still waiting to be installed.

The first thing I did when we got up to the cottage was take off the tape and plastic from the mantel and brass fireplace. I needed it to look better than I left it because when I got back to the city and saw the photos I had a moment of regret painting the fireplace.

I think with the elements exposed it looks a bit more like a painted fireplace, than marshmallow village. What do you think?

At some point down the road we need to fix the cracks so maybe we’ll plaster the fireplace to smooth it out more.

I found this image from Elle Decor’s winter 07 issue, I think it was on the cover. It reminded me of our fireplace at the cottage and looked so cool painted white. I can’t believe I found this photo, I remembered the home owners had a peace sign on their house so that’s what I searched to look it up.

Another Thursday and we’re crossing a lot of the big ones off of our “to-do list”. This time around we had to rent a paint sprayer and paint the entire wood ceiling (although nice, the back cottage tends toward dark and dank). We didn’t know whether or not we needed to use primer so we purchased 10 gallons of the 2 in 1 paint and primer in an egg shell cloud white. The same paint we used on the water front cottage, and even the store.

You may remember that last time around we rented the sprayer but got freaked out because the ceilings were too high so we ended up having to hire someone. Glad this time we were able to do it ourselves! Also, here’s a flashback to when we first took down the old drop ceiling!

Outfitted with white painter hats, goggles, and face masks we started painting in the corner room to perfect our painting method before moving into the living room.

We were really motivated to get the painting done in one day, so we really hustled. The amount of over spray is pretty incredible so covering all of the floor surfaces in the living room was essential.

The fireplace was pretty terrifying to paint but in the end I think it looks really clean and bright.

This is definitely inspired by the white plastered fireplaces that Alvar Aalto made, and although we only painted the surface it still has the same effect. When all of the tape is gone exposing the old wood shelf, and the brass and copper fireplace the contrast is going to look really nice. You’ll have to wait until next week to see that!

Here is the porch room – so much brighter! We discovered that the floor in here was already painted white but it’ll get a fresh coat next week.

LCBO paper bags protecting the old copper sconces from paint.

The original doors in the cottage were off limits for painting, but these french doors actually look quite appropriate with the pale floors and white ceiling.

You might not have noticed in the old photographs but some of the beams were made of different pieces of wood (added as extra reinforcement against snow way back when the snow was so deep it reached the eaves) so now that they have all been white washed the ceiling looks cohesive and you can appreciate the architecture even more.

Next week our friend Dan from Hindsvik is supposed to come up with us to do one last push to get this cottage in order before furnishing it, so stay tuned for some bromance next week.

I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend. Our weekend started Thursday morning when we took off to the cottage for two days, unfortunately we had to come back to work for the weekend. This time we rented the correct sanders and spent day one working on the floors, finally getting them completely flat.

Success at last! We haven’t finished the floors yet, but we’re going to do that this week.

It’s so nice to see the lines of the floors continue all the wall down the hallway into the kitchen.

We took down the large cupboard on the left of the window that was actually installed to hide the electrical panel. It was sticking out much too far, and making the kitchen feel cramped. I think I’ll make a little shallow box with hinges to hide the panel.

We also brought up the ceramic sink and white faucet from our old apartment, and making another plywood counter to install in this kitchen. Plywood is really easy to work with because you don’t need to laminate any of the wood as with most solid wood counter-tops. I have to admit, plywood isn’t the most durable material for a counter-top but if you add enough lacquer it holds up in a space that is used part time.

Just to get crazy before I left, I took down the old 70s office drop ceiling. I just whacked the metal hangers with a crowbar. Thinking back to it I’m happy I didn’t injure myself during the swinging. I did accidentally destroy a wall sconce, but thankfully those were going to be replaced anyways.

We decided to leave the exposed ceilings, they look so cool and add height to the small bedrooms. If down the road we want to make it more private I can always add a ceiling.

I had to end with this photo because I can already hear cries in the internet world after we paint the ceiling and fireplace white. To be honest I do sometimes consider keeping the wood ceilings as is, but all I have to do is go into the main cottage and see how clean and bright everything looks in white. From the photos I took you can’t really see the amount of water damage of the wood ceiling, nor can you appreciate the heavy feeling you get when you have a dark wood over head with light floors and white walls. It just feels unbalanced. Also, there aren’t many windows in this cottage so natural light is limited – the white will help to amp it up.

This week is going to be a good one if we can get most of the painting finished!